I consider my dumbphone experience over since I got my tablet; not gonna try to claim any hipster cred (boomer cred? Phone is bad) while I’m glued to a screen all day even though my phone technically is a dumbphone.
When I first hopped onto socials (IRC, CAPCOM, and Fedi) at the start of pandemic, I was kinda baffled at all the posts from people complaining how addicted they were to online, since I wasn’t. I had a mostly offline life. Now, one year later, I get it. Super stuck.
But last night I finally managed to take a break from online, with the perfect crutch: a piece of paper and a pen by the bed so I could write down all the stuff I wanted to do and check out the next time I went online.
Did I fill up the paper since my mind was racing with longing for online? Yeah…
Did it take more time overall compared to just look it up directly (because of the additional overhead of writing it down and then reading it and then doing it)? Yeah…
Did I miss some awesome mails from people I love? Yeah…
Am I gonna keep trying it? Yes! Because it was more quiet in a way I want to explore more.
I went on a completely offline vacation mid August, with only my dumbphone (and it was off the entire time). That was a trip and a half, and last night had some sliver of the same flavor. Can’t say I was super present because I ended up writing so much and reading in a book (so still in the world of text as opposed to the here and now) but still interesting.
This is how my life was before pandemic, before tablet. (Which is why the 90s retro PDA meme/groupthink on Gemini is weird to me. Use paper?) Now, I kinda do need online because I’d die of solitude otherwise, but… online still is and feels ersatz to me.